{"id":26015,"date":"2018-06-08T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T12:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=26015"},"modified":"2018-06-08T08:00:27","modified_gmt":"2018-06-08T12:00:27","slug":"26015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=26015","title":{"rendered":"Graphic Novels Go Camping!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Schools are letting out, releasing kids into the glorious summer months. For many, summertime means camp, and for some that means leaving home for weeks at a time and heading into an uncertain future in the great outdoors. Sleepaway summer camp offers kids the opportunity to head off the\u00a0beaten path, experience new things, and explore who they are on their own. Plunged into a completely\u00a0foreign environment and routine, campers navigate a complex social world where personal identities are unknown and relationships must be negotiated from scratch. For some, camp offers exhilarating freedoms. For others, it offers deeply disconcerting new terrain. Either way, the experience is usually one to remember\u2014a\u00a0premise explored in two new graphic novels that explore the singular mix of excitement and adventure, anxiety and discomfort that can define the summer camp experience.
\nBe Prepared <\/em>by Vera Brosgol brilliantly\u00a0delves into the classic summer camp social dynamic through the eyes of a fictionalized young Vera. An outsider at home, Vera desperately turns to a summer camp designed for Russian kids like her. Convinced she will finally fit in perfectly, she arrives to find herself assigned as the third wheel in a cabin with two best friends named Sasha, both five years her senior. At home she was always \u201ctoo poor,” “too Russian,” “too different.\u201d But here she\u2019s instantly too new, too young, too unworldly. Only when she\u2019s forced to stay past her initial registration is she able to shake the oppressive rule of the Sashas, forge a real friendship (without worrying about her new friend\u2019s\"\"<\/a> nonexistent cool factor), and hatch a bold plan to reclaim her dignity, finally capture the flag, and establish a new camp identity.
\nBoth visually and structurally, Vera Brosgol\u2019s graphic novel evokes the imagery of iconic camp settings, with a desperate plea for a parental pick-up ominously leading into the book from the front endpapers; lines of khaki clad, knee sock wearing kids marching in sync; primitive bathroom facilities that inspire terror and elaborate avoidance plans; and cutthroat capture-the-flag shenanigans. Vera Brosgol also infuses the book with a dry sense of humor that amplifies young Vera\u2019s plight\u2014from the expensive and slyly named historical doll named \u201cComplicity\u201d that Vera can\u2019t afford, to the explanatory aside about the delicious Russian \u201ccarbonated beverage made from Rye bread\u201d that she offers to her horrified friends at home, to the camp counselor who greets Vera on her first day with a cheerful wave and exhortation to \u201cLet me know if you see a little girl crying uncontrollably!\u201d As someone who spent many years as a camper and then a counselor, this is both a hilarious and completely recognizable\u00a0introduction to a world run mostly by slightly older teenagers.
\nWritten for an older audience, with a much more introspective tone, As the Crow Flies <\/em>by Melanie Gillman explores a similar fish out of water experience through the eyes of Charlie Lamonte, a queer, black 13-year-old looking to immerse herself in the natural world and renew her connection to God through a Christian backpacking camp for feminist girls.
\nAs in Vera\u2019s story, Charlie expects to find a group of kindred spirits, only to immediately feel isolated among an all-white group of campers. Although her mother offers more support than your stereotypical \u201cyou\u2019ll be fine\u201d platitudes, Charlie decides to stick it out. As she navigates the group dynamics, though, she hesitates to reveal too much of herself as she faces questions she doesn\u2019t feel comfortable answering. Plus, her insensitive counselor, while trying to inspire the group, can\u2019t help \"\"<\/a>but speak from a white woman\u2019s point of view. Charlie\u2019s voice is noticeably absent from these interactions for a long time, her inner voice speaking the words she can\u2019t bring herself to utter aloud.
\nMelanie Gillman punctuates Charlie\u2019s\u00a0dispirited trek with truly magnificent vistas\u00a0easily worthy of inspiring the types of spiritual moments\u00a0often\u00a0found in the wild. But as Charlie struggles to find a personal connection to her peers, that deeper link remains elusive. Along the way, though, Charlie discovers she is not, in fact, alone. She soon finds an ally where she was not expecting it in a trans camper who feels similarly isolated in the group. Through the bond of friendship and the freedom to be themselves when they are together, the girls make this journey their own. Even if they don\u2019t see themselves represented in the stories told around the campfire, they are a part of this one together, and that means something\u2014a moving, open-ended revelation that helps Charlie start to find exactly what she was looking for all along.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heading off to summer camp seeking adventure, new friends, and life-changing experiences with Vera Brosgol and Melanie Gillman. Are you prepared?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}